The Life We Live Now
by Zoe Nightshade
Summary: I eat, I sleep, I have a loving family, and people who support my interests. But is that all there is to life? Am I living?


This was written for the Veritas Monthly Prompt Challenge: Forbidden Fruit

Thanks to storm-brain for her help.

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We all want what we don't have. Everyone would like to be living someone else's life at some point of their lives.

I wonder if that was what it was like for the half-bloods we always hear about. You know, the half-bloods like Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, all those ones that we're told stories about. Did they spend their lives wishing to be regular kids with no adventure in their lives?

Here's the problem: They worked really hard to make being a half-blood better for future generations - but what are we here for? What is my purpose in life?

It's like having a Saturday where you have nothing to do. You wake up and eat breakfast. Then you sit around and wait for lunch, and then dinner. Suddenly, it's bedtime. What was the point of getting up in the morning in the first place, you wonder.

Percy Jackson was real, I know, and I know that I'm supposed to look at him as a hero. That's what Chiron says, but he doesn't understand. He knew Percy. He was there during the second Titan War. But I wasn't, and to me, Percy Jackson and all those other demigods were just the cliché myth, like Theseus and Perseus - a half-blood saves the world, or saves something, and improves the future for generations to come. I would never say this aloud, but taking out problems for future generations simply takes out the fun of life. Believe me, all my life I've wanted to do things that only half-bloods in the past did, you know, go on quests, adventures, - all in hope for a better future. This may sound selfish, a wish I'd take back immediately if it came true, but I wish that I could have spent years, feeling unwanted, wondering who my immortal parent was, living in fear, knowing a certain god wanted me dead. It's just that that kind of thing gives life a little color.

Once one of the half-bloods who fought in the second Titan War came to speak to us. She talked about what things were like back then.

Her name was Katie, and she was a daughter of Demeter. Back then, as we were reminded just about a billion times, there wasn't that whole "must be claimed by age thirteen" rule, and sometimes gods would wait years to claimed their kids. Some kids were just never claimed. She said that the difference between half-bloods and mortal kids was that mortal kids were overprotected, even back then. Mortal parents wouldn't let them run around outside without supervision. But it was different with half-bloods. Kids handled swords, knives, bows, and any other kind of weapon you can think of.

The first thing I was told when I came to Camp Half-Blood was that I would have to use the "training knife" until I was ready to move on to a real knife, and eventually a sword.

We don't learn to fight to survive; we learn to fight for fun. Monsters? No problem. The gods have "improved" the lives of demigods by capturing most of them, and enslaving the rest. Quests are fun adventures, not jobs. There are new rules. Maximum three campers, must be accompanied by one adult. Campers must call camp once every few days.

My mom loves me very much, and I enjoy living with her just as much as I enjoy coming to camp. I receive a letter from my dad every once and a while. The sensation of the sea comes over me when I open the envelope. The words are little, but sincere. All my life I've been told that I can do anything I want in life if I put my mind to it; that anything can happen.

That isn't true. I'll never change the world. I'll never go on an adventure. I'll never feel pain. All those heroes...did they live so I could live for nothing? Half-bloods have a sense of adventure sealed in their hearts. The world today simply locks it away. They babysit us all of our lives, and never set us free. When I hit my first bullseye at the archery range, Chiron told me that I had done a good job. But I could see past that - he is secretly disappointed of half-bloods today. I can tell that he knows he is training us to fight for nothing.

If I died today, people would cry. At my funeral, my mom and friends would say nice things about me. But it wouldn't be like when my someone who actually lived, and I mean really lived. Someone who went through challenges, sadness, - basically, life.

We all want what we don't have. Everyone would like to be living someone else's life at some point of their lives.

I wish I could go back. I want to go back, so I can live.


End file.
